


It's Better to Burn Than to Fade Away (It's Better to Leave Than to Be Replaced)

by Lilsciencequeen



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Drug Addiction, F/M, Heavy Angst, I'm Sorry, I'm so sorry, Implied Overdose, Implied/Referenced Brainwashing, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Torture, Not Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Season 2 Compliant, Not Canon Compliant, Past Brainwashing, Past Torture, References to Drugs, it has a happy ending, trust me - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-04
Updated: 2016-10-04
Packaged: 2018-08-19 13:06:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,905
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8209625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lilsciencequeen/pseuds/Lilsciencequeen
Summary: “Jemma?” a voice asked from outside her apartment door. She felt her breath catch in her throat, setting the mug down on the piece of wood that could barely be called a coffee table. “Jemma? I know you’re there. Please, I just want to talk.”





	

**Author's Note:**

> Having only caught up this morning, I can finally post this here. It's heavy af at first but it has a happy ending. Trust me please... Title from Nicotine by Panic! At The Disco

“Jemma?” a voice asked from outside her apartment door. She felt her breath catch in her throat, setting the mug down on the piece of wood that could barely be called a coffee table. “Jemma? I know you’re there. Please, I just want to talk.”

She remained silent, hoping that that they would go away, leave her alone. She had spent so many months now, trying to distance herself from her past, from all that had happened.

From all that _she_ had done.

“Jemma” the voice asked again. It was clear that they would not leave until she answered them.

“Please,” she said, her voice small shaking. “Please.” At first the please was for them to leave, for them to leave her alone. But the second please, the second one was more of a plea for help.

The door handle came down, then it swung open, and in the doorway stood Lance Hunter. “Jemma,” he whispered, taking in the state of her, and the place that she now called home. “You know why I’m here?”

She nodded. “Because he’s getting married tomorrow.”

“What? No. No that’s not it.”

“Then why?” she asked, wondering why that Lance Hunter, the mercenary that she barely knew, that mercenary that had saved her from Hydra’s tentacles, was doing here.       

He looked pained, and gave a sigh. “Last week.”

She cringed at the thought, thinking back to what Lance Hunter was referring to. “Did… did Carol tell you?”

He nodded this time, watching as her shoulders sank. She wrapped her arms around herself, and Lance took her in completely. The oversized jumper that she was wearing. How limp and lifeless her hair seemed. How out of it she seemed.

“Jemma, you can come back, if not to help us work with us, but to get help from us.”

She closed her eyes, trying to fight back the tears that were already streaming down her face. “I’m fine,” she whispered, her voice low and broken as though trying to portray a strength that she currently didn’t have. “I’m fine Lance. I don’t… I don’t need your help.” Her eyes were open, and though there was a fiery determination hidden behind the glistening tears, there was also a cry for help hidden there. “I don’t need your help.”

Hunter sighed, and looked as though he was going to regret what he was going to say next. “Jemma, you’re… you’re not okay.” He shook his head as he was saying it, his voice full of pity and it hurt her to her very core. She hated people talking to her, and looking at her, like he was. “Jemma, you nearly died last week.”

“Please, don’t… don’t remind me.”

He sighed, and took a step further into the room, closing the door behind him, and made the way to the threadbare sofa that was one of the only pieces of furniture in the room. He patted the seat beside him, inviting her to sit back down. Jemma shook her head, hugging herself even tighter and curling up on the battered armchair that sat opposite the sofa. “I know what happened,” she whispered. “And you have to believe me. Please, you have to believe me that I never… I didn’t mean for it to happen.”

“Of course I do. Why wouldn’t I?”

She shrugged. “I’m… I’m sorry. Does... does Fitz know?”

“No. No one knows except for me.”

She gave a sad watery smile at this. She used her sleeve, well worn from use, to wipe away the tears.

“When did all this begin?” he asked, carefully asking the question, scared to overstep the mark, careful to destroy the fragility that existed within the room.

“After… after I left. I suppose you know I moved around. A lot. You know what I’ve done, what happened to me.” Hunter nodded, and she took this as cue to continue. “I couldn’t… I didn’t want to stay in one place too long, I couldn’t… Lance I can’t trust myself, not after all that happened, not after all that I’ve done.”

“That wasn’t you.” Hunter sat forward, and Jemma scratched at her nose. “Jemma, it wasn’t. It was all Hydra.”

“But I pulled the trigger, not them. I was the one who killed them.”

“No. It was Hydra. Jemma, they hurt you, tortured you, and played with your very brain.”

“I deserved that…” Those three soft words trailed off at the end, and Jemma had a far off look in her eyes that Hunter was certain wasn’t simply due to the drugs that were coursing through her very system.

“Dr. Jemma Simmons, you didn’t.”

“But I do Hunter, after everything. After all I did to him, to Fitz. I hurt him, Lance. I… made him worse so I left and when I left I just made everything… I can’t do anything right.”

“So your letter… it was true.”

“My letter?” She nodded. “It was all true. Every word in that was the truth. I left him because I love him and he needed to recover. I left him because it… I thought it was the best thing to do. That he needed to learn to live without me, to recover without me. I was making him worse.”

“ _Love_. As in present tense and not _loved_ as in past?”

Another nod from Jemma. “Nothing can ever stop me loving him. Even though… even though I’m not good enough for him.”

“That’s not…” but Jemma cut him off before he could finish. “Is Fitz… is he happy?”

A pause before Hunter replied. “As he can be.”

“Hunter, please. At least tell me the truth.”

A slow nod. “He is happy,” a sob from Jemma caused him to pause his answer. “On the outside at least. Jemma, none of… none of us like her. Because of how she treats… how she talks about you.”

“I deserve that.” Another whisper.

Hunter shook his head. “You don’t. We all miss you Jemma. We’ve all been worried about you.”

“I know,” she whispers, drawing further into herself, causing Hunter to fear that he had overstepped the line. “It’s for the best I’m here.”

“For us, or for you?”

She shrugged, though she knew the true answer. She was here to protect her team, her family, to keep them away from the monster that Hydra had made her into nearly two years ago.

“Come back, please, not to work, just for help. You deserve that Jemma, you need it. You know you want it, deep down you know that you do.”

She didn’t reply, playing Hunter’s words through her mind again and again. And she knew that he was right. She did want help, deep down she really did, but she was masking it behind this mask of guilt. “Would they… would they want me back?”

Hunter nodded, knowing that _they_ meant _him._ “He does, Jemma he misses you, he still loves you.”

He got up of the sofa, and crouched down in front of the curl in which that she was curled up in. He reached, and took a hand of hers in his own. She didn’t protest, savouring the fact that someone was still treating her as human, something that hadn’t happened in so long.

“But he’s getting married tomorrow. I can’t, I don’t want to ruin that as well.”

“But you can talk to him.”

***

“You convinced her?” Trip asked, as Hunter carried her sleeping form into the hotel room that they were staying in for the wedding.

Hunter nodded, placing her on one of the beds in the room, tucking her under the blankets and sitting down in the chair beside it.

“Is it bad?”

Another nod from Hunter. “She OD’ed last week.”

Trip felt all the air forced out of his lungs, and unable to speak. “She told you?”

Hunter nodded for a third time in that conversation. “She confirmed it.”

“How did you know?”

“Her neighbour, Carol, told me last week.”

“You know her neighbour, where she lived?”

Hunter sighed, knowing that this would have come up eventually. “When Coulson said she was MIA, I asked a few contacts to keep a lookout for her, make sure that she was okay but no one had seen her until last week. Carol discovered her door open, and her unconscious…” Hunter stopped, not needing to continue, not wanting to continue, not able to continue.

“And she told you?” Trip asked, prompting him to continue.

“She told me everything. As soon as she told me Jemma was well enough I left, persuaded her to come back, if not to work at least for help. She needs it.”

“Hunter, why is she really here?”

“She wants to be back, she wants the help…” a lull in the conversation and then a rushed number of words, “She wants to talk to him.”

Trip let out a long low breath, and then spoke. “You have to be careful, tomorrow, it’s his wedding, you can’t ruin this Lance.”

Hunter shook his head this time. “I’m not going.”

Trip frowned, looking at the colleague that he had come to know as a friend over the past couple of years. “You’re not?”

“Claire never liked me much to begin with, and someone needs to keep an eye on her…” Hunter looked like he was going to say more, but was cut off by a scream from Jemma.

She awoke, thrashing on the bed, trying to fight her way through the blankets that were ensnaring her.

“Jemma. Jemma. Jemma!” Hunter called out, climbing onto the bed, and helping her into a more comfortable position, and running his hand over her hair, soothing her hair, and whispering reassurances into her ear.

A number of minutes later, she settled back into a restless sleep, this time against Hunter, who still ran his hand through her hair, being careful of the knots that resided at the ends.

Trip rose from his position, and nodded at Hunter. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” before making his way into the adjoining room, hoping to get some sleep for the next day.

***

Jemma slept somewhat peaceful for the rest of the night, only waking up a number of times.

When morning finally came, Hunter was still there supporting her, trying to help stop the shakes that were overtaking her.

A knock on the door caused both of them to look towards it. Trip had left a little over an hour ago, leaving the two Brits alone. “I’ll be back,” he explained to Jemma as he climbed out of the bed, and made his way across the hotel room.

Opening the door, he found a very annoyed looking May standing there. “Agent May.”

She just stared at him, her face void of emotions. “You’re supposed to be downstairs.”

Hunter just gave a long sigh at this, trying to postpone the conversation. “I can’t.”

He closed the door behind him, hiding not only Jemma from May but the conversation from Jemma. “I found her,” he whispered and a brief flash of emotion overcame May.

“Simmons?”

“It’s bad.” He didn’t need to elaborate, not any further. May had spent more time in S.H.I.E.L.D. than any of them had, and knew what could happen to agents, like Jemma, who either didn’t get the help or accept the help offered after what they had been through.

“When?”

“Last week, I was only able to get in contact with her last night. She’s here. She… she wants the help May. We can’t fail her. Not again.”

“We won’t.” May looked at Hunter, as if trying to decipher a puzzle. She had to know that there were things that he was keeping hidden, the real reason that Jemma was here. She knew that she should say it, that she had to say it; that Hunter _shouldn’t_ bring Jemma to Fitz, not yet anyway. Not until she had recovered, until she was better and had come to terms with what had happened.

And definitely _not_ during the wedding.

But, if May was going to be honest with herself, she didn’t want to say it. Fitz, despite being engaged, had still looked for Jemma, wanting to bring her back home, back to safety. Despite Coulson declaring her MIA, despite all the work that he had been given as Head of the Science and Technology Division, Fitz hadn’t given up, he couldn’t give up (but he had moved on in one respect).

And May didn’t trust Claire. She seemed nice on the surface, she was nice to Fitz, but she wasn’t about Jemma (it had, however, calmed down, and all it took was the two woman alone, and a dark corridor of The Playground and a number of words).

“Do you… do you want to see her?” Hunter asked nervously, sacred to overwhelm Jemma when she was in the state that she currently was.

May gave one nod, and Hunter opened the door, allowing May into the hotel room. Jemma looked up at the sudden noise, drawing herself away from the tablet that had once held her attention. “Simmons,” was all May said, standing not too close as to spook the younger woman, but not too far away that they weren’t able to hear each other.

Jemma gave a small sad smile. “Hello May.”

May returned it, trying to find the words that were most appropriate for the conversation. It wasn’t that she hadn’t dealt with it before, for she had, a number of times; it was that she didn’t know the whole story, not yet anyway. But May didn’t need to worry about what to say next, for Jemma spoke.

“You’re worried, want to ask me how I am, don’t you?”

May gave another nod, prompting Jemma to continue. “It’s okay, you don’t… you don’t have to worry about me. I’m fine, thanks, been better, but right now, I’m okay.”

May wanted to disagree, to protest what Jemma had just said but she didn’t. She knew that there were still mountains to climb with Jemma but she would take every little thing that was given to her.

“You have to go to it don’t you?”

May gave a slow nod this time. She didn’t want to, but Fitz had needed another witness and she had taken up that position. “I’ll be back up as soon as I can, okay?”

Jemma just stared at her, eyes wide, tears glistening at the corners and threatening to spill. “Thank you,” she whispered her voice soft and gentle.

“We’re glad you’re back Jemma.”

Jemma nodded this time, unable to speak, scared to speak in case all her emotions came spilling out.

And then, they were alone, just Jemma and Hunter. A silence quickly filled in the cracks in the room, ones that were both obvious and not so obvious.

Jemma looked down at the device resting in her lap, running her thumb back and forth and back and forth and back and forth across the blank screen of it.

“Lance,” she began, almost child-like in how she stated his name, drawing it out, as though wanting to ask him for a question, but she didn’t continue with what she was going to ask. Instead she shook her head, whispered that it didn’t matter, and turned her attention back to the tablet, reading whatever article that it was that she had been reading.

“Jemma,” Lance began. “You do know that you can ask me anything, and I’ll try my best to help.”

“You will?”

The question pained Lance more than he thought that it would. Jemma, the Jemma before Hydra, the Jemma before their tentacles had wrapped themselves around her, squeezing her, crushing her, re-writing her very being, that Jemma always put herself before other (or so he had been told, he had never know that Jemma but it still seemed as though she were like that) scared to ask for help, scared to ask for something that she wanted. Scared to put herself first.

It was an admirable trait, Hunter wasn’t going to deny that, but in the long run, it wasn’t. Not when you put yourself after others so many times that it was starting to harm you.

Hunter nodded. “Yeah, yeah ‘course you can. Why wouldn’t you?”

Jemma shrugged, and Hunter knew that it wasn’t just Jemma being Jemma that caused her to ask this.

It was Hydra. She must have asked one too many questions, asked for one thing too much and they must have punished her for it.

They had just hurt her anyway (he had seen the scars, and it still made him ill thinking about it, just what they had done to her).

“Yeah, you can Jemma, what is it?”

She took a breath, as if preparing herself for the words that were going to leave her mouth next. “I want… can I talk to him?”

Hunter nodded.

***

“If there is anyone who thinks these two should not wed, speak now or forever hold you peace.”

“I do… no wait, Fitz, please, can I talk to you?”

All heads turned to where the small voice came from.

Silence filled the room, then came the voices, whispers.

For no one had expected to see Dr. Jemma Simmons standing there, wearing an old jumper and leggings at the wedding of her ex-partner and best friend.

She took a few small steps further up the aisle (and tried so very hard _not_ imagine that it was _her_ wedding, that it was her wearing the dress of white and walking down the aisle towards Fitz, the man to be her husband. But it wasn’t. And it never could be), and stopped, ignoring all the whispered that filled the room, and everyone staring at her (she didn’t even pick out Fitz’s mum, Mack, Bobbi or even Skye in the crowd). “Please.”

Fitz nodded, and the room went dead silent in a split second, and if a pin was dropped, it would have been able to be heard throughout the whole room. “Jems.”

“Hi Fitz. I know… I know that I have no right being here, now, but I need… I want to talk to you.”

A snide reply came from Claire; “You’re right, you have no right.” But Fitz raised a hand and made his way closer to Jemma, making his way down the steps that lead to the alter and back down the aisle.

“I wanted to talk to you.”

“Yeah, yeah that’s okay.” He gave her a smile and she returned it but it soon faltered and faded away.

“I wanted… I wanted to apologise for everything Fitz. For all that I’ve done, all the pain that I’ve caused you.”

“That…” he stammered, unable to find the words (and subconsciously he was scared to say them aloud and was trying to delay that). “You meant everything in your letter?”

She nodded. “Everything in that Fitz, I meant it. Every word.”

He took this in, and was left rendered speechless. “You left… you left because you thought you were making me worse.”

“I did.” He was going to protest but she stopped him. “I did Fitz. Everyone knows it, everyone could see it.”

“No,” he said, shaking his head. Refusing to believe it. That Jemma Simmons could make him worse. “Jems, no nothing you could do, nothing in this universe could make me… you could never.”

“But I did Fitz, and when I came back…” she paused, shaking (whether with fear or from coming down, she wasn’t too sure). “I made everything even worse.”

He shook his head again, taking another step closer to her, and really taking her in. She looked… she didn’t look healthy. He didn’t know what she had been through in all those months she was in Hydra, and the ones that had followed when she had fled S.H.I.E.L.D., but it wasn’t healthy.

“And Perthshire, all that… is that true?”

She nodded, and wiped away at a tear that had escaped. “It is, Fitz. Everything is true. That I love you, that I want the best for you. I’ll be back at base for a while, then I’m leaving again. You don’t… you don’t deserve me. You deserve her, Claire. Someone who deserves to love you. You deserve happiness, not me.”

Then she turned and started walking back down the aisle, head down, ignoring everyone still, everyone who was obsessed with the drama that was unfolding in front of them. No one had even thought that this would happen, and they were all enjoying it (some of them even more so than the wedding, the ones who didn’t like Claire because of her treatment of Jemma were finding this somewhat amusing and were indeed rooting for Fitz and Jemma).

“Jems?” he asked as she drew closer and closer to the door. “Where… where you going?”

She spun so she was facing him, her eyes red and puffy, tears flowing fast down her face. “Back to my room. Fitz, this is your wedding. I can’t… I shouldn’t be here.”

Then she was walking back towards the door again, but before she exited, she felt fingers wrap gently around her wrist, causing her to spin…

Straight into Fitz.

“Hey,” he whispered, so low that only she could hear him. “You… Jemma you’ve not done anything to not deserve me.”

She was about to protest, but his thumb, rough and calloused from so many years of work but also so gentle and tender, wiped away at the tears that streamed down her face before he was shushing her and then pulling her into a hug.

His arms wrapped around her, rubbing her back as she sobbed into his chest, the tears staining the fabric of his shirt.

She wanted, she _needed_ to wrap her arms around him, but they were in-between their bodies, close to her own chest, just like they had been all that time ago after Skye had been shot.

He whispered gentle reassurances into her hair, and placed a kiss to the top of her forehead.

When she felt the ghost of his lips dance across her hair, she left out a louder sob. Though she had wanted this for as long as she could remember, she didn’t deserve this. Not at all. She had done what she hadn’t wanted to do.

She had ruined his wedding.

“Hey,” he whispered, pulling out of the hug. “Jems, it’s okay, it’s nothing to worry about.”

“It is.”

He shook his head. “No its not. I want… I… Jemma, I love you, you know that? I have always, and always will love you.”

She nodded, taking in his words, the words that he should not be saying. Not to her. Not on his wedding day. But it didn’t stop her saying it again also.

It definitely didn’t stop her from kissing him back when he tilted her head up and allowed his lips to dance across hers.

When they pulled apart, they were so lost in each other that they didn’t hear anything that was happening around them, nothing at all. Including Skye.

Jemma just gave a nervous smile as he smiled down at her, brushing a loose strand of hair back behind her ear.

Then they were kissing again, his arms holding her, and her arms draped around his neck.

In that moment, they were truly and utterly FitzSimmons, finally on their way to their happy ending.     

**Author's Note:**

> This has ended up being my 100th fic that has been posted and I honestly never thought that I would be able to get here. Writing has always been a dream of mine and with the help of you guys I have been able to get here, so whether this is your first or hundredth fic, I want to say a massive thank you. You guys are the best and I don't know what I would do without you. Thank you for everything.


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